Museum conservators prepare a state-of-the-art conservation lab in the new Shapell Center.

Moving the Collection of Record on the Holocaust into Its Permanent Home

A historic project four years in the making is culminating in the move of the Museum’s National Institute for Holocaust Documentation into the new 103,000-square-foot David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center. As we go to press, 90 percent of the Museum’s collection has moved safely into its permanent home.

Barcoding was a transformational change for the Museum. The technology allows staff to verify
the real-time location of every item in the collection—currently there
are more than 52,000 specific locations institution-wide.

Specialists in inventory and location tracking organize archival materials for transportation to the Shapell Center. A total of 15,000 archival collections—from restitution case files to personal papers—are being moved into document vaults.

Staff completes the inventory of a document vault at the Shapell Center. The move will be completed in early May 2017.

You get one chance to do this, and it has to be right. Nothing in our collection is replaceable, period. — Collections Move Project Manager Randy Davis

Art handlers will pack and unpack an estimated 44,000 items and collections, ranging from a small Star of David that was worn by a child to a bulky Hollerith machine (above) used in the 1930s German censuses.

SNAPSHOT: Preparing to Move One Family’s Story

Both were born in Poland. Both managed to defy the Nazis and survive. Although Oscar Albert’s and Doba Dreszner’s stories of survival are very different, each kept a green metal box that symbolized the return to humanity. They married after the war and the boxes stayed with them as they rebuilt their lives in America. In 2014, their daughter, Helen Albert, donated these family treasures — the toolbox given to Oscar in a displaced persons camp as part of vocational training and the gift box Doba received in the Jewish orphanage where she lived after the war — to the Museum.

The precision with which the collection was prepared for the move is called “preventive conservation.” Each object is assessed by conservators to develop methods to mitigate risk during the move. It is then photographed for security, preservation, and accessibility.

Art handlers build new housing for Oscar’s and Doba’s boxes that is designed to reduce handling and stabilize the objects during the move. The
boxes will be permanently stored in this custom housing at the new center.

Packed containers are moved from staging areas in the existing facility to staging areas in the new David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center. From there, objects will be placed in their permanent homes in the vaults.

Every aspect of this project is about the long-term preservation and security of the collection. The move is only the beginning of a new chapter in the life of the Museum. — Director of Collection Services Travis Roxlau

All images US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This article was first published in spring 2017.